Converting Power Cords into Speaker Cables?


Someone very knowledgeable in high end audio swears that instead of buying more expensive speaker cables, it's more cost effective to look for power cords of the same cable and use it as speaker wires. He has very successfully done this with Vahalla power cord and found no sonic difference between the original Vahalla speaker cables and one he made from Vahalla power cord. He is now applying his creativity to other brands. The advantage is considerable cost savings but downside is when you want to sell these reconverted cables. Your views are appreciated. Anyone tried this trick? Any technical/cable geometry flaws in doing this?
lall
lall
A high amp rated power cord is made of thick AWG wire and will indeed make a good speaker cable. The primary concern with speaker cables is something that makes a good contact at each end and has low resistance. Some power cables may be a bit too stiff and may not have enough individual strands to make excellent contact - so be careful.
... mad desire to experiment on something not worth wasting time for.
You can go through the 'cooking' recipes of making a speaker cable buying simply high quality bulk wire(that could be used in power cords) and assembling/terminating it.
Spending for ridiculously expensive Valhalla power cord than stripping it and making speaker cable is even more ridiculous.
It's been done - and you could spend the rest of the day Googling for the various references. There's an older story where Quad has reportedly demo'd their gear using Black & Decker extension cords to connect to the speakers, etc. Audioholics has a bunch of articles, or Google Roger Russell (of McIntosh fame - try Roger-Russell.com, I think) and get more answers there. Bottom line is that it's all wire - some has better insulation, some is thicker, but if it's 12AWG or better you should be good to go (as I pull on the fire-retardant suit... ;~).
When I biwired my MG1.6 speakers the first time I tried an experiment. Noting that I was using a one ohm tweeter padding resistor, I used thin (cheap) wire (AWG 24 I think) for the tweeter, and got rid of the resistor. The speaker cables were quite long and the tweeter wire resistance was close to the resistor value. Results were good.